A Bigger Payday at the French Open

The Philippe Chatrier Court at the French Open. The director of the Grand Slam tournament said that prize money would be increased ‘‘spectacularly’’ over the next four seasons.

Felipe Trueba / European Pressphoto Agency

By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

March 21, 2013

For newly unified men’s professional tennis players, it is now a case of two dominoes down with two dominoes quite likely to go.

After getting a major pay raise from the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, the Australian Open, the men have extracted an even more major, long-term pay raise from the United States Open, along with the schedule they have long desired.

After trying and failing for years to generate the necessary solidarity and staying power to negotiate effectively with leaders of the world’s most important tennis events, the men and their off-court leader, Roger Federer, are now trying and succeeding.

U.S. Open officials initially announced a $4 million increase in total men’s and women’s prize money for 2013. In other times, that would have been cause for player celebration, but this time — and the credibility of the players’ threats to withhold their services — is different.

Under heavy pressure from the underwhelmed men and, to a lesser degree, the women, the U.S. Open leadership announced a further increase Wednesday of $4.1 million for 2013. That brings the overall purse to $33.6 million with a commitment to reach $50 million by 2017. The decision was made with major input from new United States Tennis Association president, Dave Haggerty, and former men’s tour players on the U.S.T.A’s board of directors like Patrick Galbraith, Tommy Ho and Todd Martin.

It would now come as quite a surprise if the other two Grand Slam tournaments — the French Open and Wimbledon — did not announce commensurate increases next month.

Gilbert Ysern, the French Open tournament director, indicated as much by telephone Thursday while acknowledging surprise at the magnitude of the U.S. Open prize-money move.

Though Ysern declined to give precise figures, he said the French Open planned to increase prize money “spectacularly” over the next four years, from 2013 to 2016.

“We’re going to be below the U.S. Open, but we’re on the same path,” said Ysern, stating that the emphasis would remain on increasing rewards for players who are eliminated in earlier rounds.

One of the driving forces behind the Association of Tennis Professionals’ prize-money push has been the collective desire to increase the pool of players making a healthy living from the professional game.

“I think quite sincerely that there’s a logic to paying the players more than we have until now,” Ysern said. “I am particularly convinced there’s a logic to reducing the gap between the first- week players and the second-week players and to raise the prize money for the first week. I think that really is logical, but after that, I think you have to be reasonable.”

The players, however, are now unquestionably on a roll. They have established precedent by conducting direct discussions with the Grand Slam leadership over prize money, and it remains unclear what they will consider reasonable after negotiating what amounts to a 100 percent pay increase, spread out over five years, from the U.S. Open.

The Australian Open raised prize money to $30 million Australian dollars (about $31 million) this year and its leaders intend to increase that to $40 million Australian by 2016. The French Open’s 2012 total was €18.7 million, about $23 million at last year’s exchange rates. Wimbledon’s 2012 total was £16.1 million, about $25 million at last year’s exchange rates.

There is lingering resentment at the French Open’s decision to add a 15th day in 2006 and to start on a Sunday. Justin Gimelstob, a player representative on the A.T.P.’s board of directors, said the players were also wary of the French Open’s plan — which faces legal opposition in Paris — to build a roofed stadium and add night-session play by 2018.

“The players view that as building on their sweat equity,” Gimelstob said by telephone. “The French Open is in tremendous jeopardy of falling behind after what the U.S. Open and Australian Open have announced.”

The developments this year are surprising and potentially game-changing if the players choose to use their leverage collectively and selectively on a number of issues. Those include the yearly calendar, the problematic Davis Cup team event, and even the format of the game itself in an increasingly physical era.

“It’s been a long road to get where we are today,” Brad Drewett, the A.T.P. executive chairman, said in an interview. “The progress that has been made over the last 12 months has been extremely significant.

“We’ve managed to get to a position where the Slams are not only listening to the A.T.P. and the players’ concerns, but both sides are looking to be good partners in the long term. That change in the landscape cannot be underestimated, and my hope is this change is something that will ultimately benefit the sport as a whole for many years to come.”

Drewett, a 54-year-old Australian, has played less of a role in the most recent negotiations because of serious illness. He has announced that he has Lou Gehrig’s disease and that he intends to step down from his post.

Others have taken on larger, pivotal roles, including Gimelstob, the former men’s player from the United States. “I won’t say it was fun or cordial, and it was incredibly stressful and angst-ridden and there were even times it got personal,” Gimelstob said. “But at the end of the day, we all put our egos aside and did what was best for the sport and the Slams and the tour.”

Federer, the 17-time Grand Slam champion, remains president of the player council. Though his hands-on leadership has created occasional friction with other top players, including Rafael Nadal, it has been critical to projecting credibility to Grand Slam tournament leaders.

“Roger was a statesman and was instrumental in this happening,” Gordon Smith, the executive director of the U.S. Tennis Association, said by telephone.

Though this was clearly a big victory for the players, Smith and the U.S.T.A. had expressed the intent in January to increase singles prize money by a minimum of 75 percent from 2012 to 2017. “We would have been doing significant numbers over five years anyway,” Smith said. “And these certainly are bigger but frankly we have to recognize the value of the players.”

Smith said he believed the U.S.T.A. could absorb the prize-money increase without making significant job cuts. Ysern said the same of the French Tennis Federation but that it would have to change its economic model and adapt to a “new way” of doing things.

The U.S.T.A. does get benefits. With a five-year agreement, the U.S.T.A. now has the medium- term stability and clarity that should help as it attempts to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to finance further development of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The players also agreed to accept a scheduled Monday men’s final in 2013 and 2014: a move that — according to Smith — will save the U.S.T.A. from an $8.5 million loss in revenue in each of those years.

The U.S.T.A.’s existing television contract with the U.S. network CBS expires in 2014. It should now be able to negotiate the next deal without labor unrest and with a new, more conventional calendar locked in: men’s semifinals on Friday, women’s final on Saturday and men’s final on Sunday.

The U.S.T.A.’s concessions also mean that the relationship between the tournament and the top men’s players — increasingly testy in recent years — could improve. “Yesterday a new chapter started,” Gimelstob said. “And I truly believe the U.S. Open will grow from the Grand Slam the players had to play to the Grand Slam in which the players feel they are part of the inner fabric. That will have benefits for everyone.”

For now, however, the focus is on the Grand Slam dominoes that have yet to fall.